Financial Times 16,711 by CINEPHILE

by

Today marks the centenary of the legendary John Graham.

Generally agreed to be the doyen of crossword setters, Graham set as Cinephile for the FT and, of course, Araucaria for the Guardian. He died in 2013, so it's an unexpected treat and honour for me to be blogging him today.

This puzzle was first set in 2015. The rubric reads, 'Solutions to clues marked * are linked to the same legend'.

He was never an easy solve but this one lies at the slightly more straightforward end of his spectrum. Once the theme is cracked, it becomes a pretty enjoyable romp. R.I.P., again, to a genius.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 AVALON
*See into a vehicle here (6)

LO ('see') in A VAN.
4 EBORACUM
East wind from North of Venice with city of Roman Britain (8)

E[ast} + BORA ('wind from the north') + CUM ('with' in Latin, & thus presumably in 'Roman' Venice). Eboracum is York.
10 ASTOLAT
*In the matter of some Latin town (7)

AS TO ('in the matter of') + LAT[in]. Astolat is the Arthurian town and also surname of the Lady of Shallot.
11 DOUBLED
Copied sound of -th in Welsh? (7)

Two definitions. In Welsh, double D ('DD') is pronounced as a voiced 'th'. Tricky one to blog; so many 'doubles'.
12 HOVE
Moved to Sussex coast (4)

Another double def. 'Hove' as p.t , of 'heave' ( to 'move') & Sussex coastal town.
13 PROVIDENCE
Subject of religious instruction (RI) (10)

Double def again. Providence is a town in Rhode Island ('RI').
15 MERLIN
*Blackbird at home to raptor (6)

'MERL' (or 'Merle'), a blackbird, + IN ('home')
16 BREAKER
Damaging wave? (7)

Sort of cryptic DD.
20 ELEGANT
Graceful and neat, oddly concealing a limb (7)

Anagram ('oddly') of NEAT surrounds LEG.
21 ALICIA
Girl from the Channel Islands (among others) (6)

C[hannel] I[slands] in ALI.A ('others', as in 'inter alia').
24 NEVER-NEVER
HP for Peter Pan? (5-5)

Pan of course lived in 'Never' – sometimes 'Never-Never-' – Land. H[ire] P[urchase] is sometimes known as 'the never-never'.
26 BLOC
Obstacle having no king for group of countries (4)

BLOCk without K[ing].
28 GALAHAD
*Celebration possessed him (7)

GALA ('celebration') + HAD ('possessed').
29 FROEBEL
Female insurgent retaining love for educationalist (7)

F[emale] + R.EBEL ('insurgent') to include 0 ('love'). Friedrich Froebel, early 'child-centered' educationalist. You knew that.
30 TUTORAGE
Teaching turned out great (8)

Anagram ('turned') of OUT GREAT.
31 ESPRIT
Rogue priest has what the corps should have (6)

Anagram ('rogue') of PRIEST. Esprit de Corps, of course.
DOWN
1 ANATHEMA
First in song gets a curse (8)

A ('first') in AN.THEM ('song') + A.
2 ANTIVIRAL
Drug needing trial – vain? (One hopes not) (9)

Anagram ('needing…) of TRIAL VAIN. Oddly topical clue.
3 OILY
Obsequious sort of fish (4)

Double def.
5 BEDIVERE
*He is a swallow, maybe, swallowed by a bee (8)

DIVER (as in, perhaps, a 'swallow dive') included in BEE.
6 ROUND TABLE
*Where they negotiate for money – and time possibly included (5,5)

ROU.BLE ('money') includes anagram ('possibly') of AND T[ime].
7 COLON
Stop something inside (5)

DD. Punctuation & anatomy.
8 MODRED
*He was the up-to-date revolutionary (6)

MOD ('up-to-date') + RED ('revolutionary'). More usually 'Mordred'.
9 STORY
Legend on the level in America (5)

DD. U.S..spelling of 'storey',
14 KING ARTHUR
*He had family at the courtyard, old city (4,6)

KIN ('family') + GARTH ('courtyard' in Chambers) + UR (of the Chaldees, biblical 'old city').
17 EXCALIBUR
*Weapon to make one cub relax (9)

Anagaram ('to make') of 1 + CLUB + RELAX
18 UNDERDOG
Not a Peke, presumably (8)

Works if you take 'peke' as a homophone of 'peak', although it's not explicit.
19 LANCELOT
*He had a weapon against fate (8)

LANCE + LOT. My first thematic solution.
22 KNIGHT
*Dark follower of monarch? (6)

NIGHT ('dark') follows 'King'. Poss reference the 'Dark Knight' film series.
23 BEEFY
Big and strong by keeping money back? (5)

B.Y contains reversal of FEE.
25 VALET
Attendant bidding farewell to model? (5)

VALE (L. 'goodbye') + (Model) T.
27 BORS
*He removed the heart from wild beasts (4)

BOaRS,

19 comments on “Financial Times 16,711 by CINEPHILE”

  1. I loved this puzzle and its theme.
    Favourite: DOUBLED.
    New: NEVER-NEVER = hire purchase; Friedrich Froebel; merl = blackbird.
    I did not parse 18d UNDERDOG.
    Failed to solve 4ac and 10ac.

    Thank you Cinephile and Grant, and many thanks to cellomaniac who alerted me to this puzzle in the FT today.

  2. Who better to blog than GRAnt baynHAM.

    Failed to get STORY & BORS and didn’t write in ASTOLAT, which was my guess but never heard of it.

  4. A very enjoyable crossword as you’d expect from the Master Setter

    Thanks to the FT for letting us solve it again and to Grant for the blog

  6. Took me a long time to believe that MODRED was a legitimate spelling, and to see why 13A was PROVIDENCE (another dent in the tea tray). EXCALIBUR was my way into the theme: the only one I didn’t remember was ASTOLAT. Lots to enjoy here.

  7. This was an absolute pleasure and as one relatively new to crossword land, a welcome opportunity to solve the offering of a maestro.
    Failed on FROEBEL and ASTOLAT but this didn’t detract from the fun of hunting down the themed answers of which MERLIN was my favourite. Also admired NEVER NEVER.
    Thanks to the FT for re-issuing this special puzzle and to Grant.

  8. Thanks to the FT for the puzzle and GB for the blog.

    In 4, I think BORA is “wind from North of Venice” as it occurs in the northern Adriatic and CUM = “with” on its own.

  10. Wow! Just wow! Brilliant cluing made this just a pleasure .. altho I failed to get 10ac.. as in i’d never heard of it .. didnt detract from fun… 11ac my fave.. first time to use my tiny knowledge of Welsh.. definitely a maestro.. I can feel some archive searching coming up..
    Thanks for re-releasing this .. wonderful tribute to this setter.. thanks to Grant Baynham for the blog

  12. Michelle@1, I’m glad you found this, and enjoyed it.

    After failing miserably on the Guardian tribute puzzle I came over to this one, and my day was made. What Undrell@10 said, in spades!

  13. I’ve just had a go at the Cinephile puzzle, not entirely successfully. The puzzle here seems very much in the mould of that one, except that the clues in this one are much tighter. I’d love to know what Soup thinks of Araucaria’s cluing style.
    [baerchen, ah well, thanks anyway. I think the anonymity is enormously valuable, no surprise it’s well guarded]

  14. Very late to post – but thought I would, given the day, and given that this is my first ever successfully completed puzzle set by the Reverend. Only decided to glance at it following my final check of the G thread at 11 and here I am posting already. And I had to wait for the printer to warm up. I started without pen and paper, actually solved one, then got EXCALIBUR and a couple more and realised I might be on the wavelength and with a theme I know! As our blogger says, it must have been at the more accessible end of his style because I’ve never got close before. The theme really helped and even those I didn’t know turned out to be correct when Googled. What an absolute delight and a lovely way to end my day.
    Thanks to the FT and to Grant Baynham for the blog

  15. An even later thought – given that he was compiling at a time when there was slightly less sensitivity – and I ask that my point be taken entirely in that historical context – might the clue for 22d be even more subtle. I read that Sir Morien was the son of Sir Agrovale, a knight of Arthur’s court, and a Moorish princess. He travelled to England to seek his father and joined Arthur’s court himself where he was known – in the legends – as the Dark or Black Knight in reference to the rarity of his descent. All the other asterisked clues are very specific Arthurian references and KNIGHT does stand out as the only generalised theme answer. It would go with the setter’s reputation that he would be aware of the full story. Just a thought.

  16. Thanks Cinephile and Grant
    What a wonderful surprise when I saw the banner … and what an entertaining and challenging time when getting started on the solve. Getting KNIGHT as the first answer, semi alerted me to the theme and GALAHAD shortly after, confirmed it.
    Was able to work anti-clockwise around the grid until only the NE corner and the ASTOLAT / STORY clues were left. It took a fair bit of time and the use of a word finder to get EBORACUM and get the break in that corner. Still it took a while to winkle out the last clues and another word finder expedition to get ASTOLAT as the last one in.
    Really entertaining hour and a half and a reminder of how much I miss him !

  17. Far from a romp for me, Grant, though I got there in the end. Held up by having TOAD at 3d. It almost works – an obsequious person is a toady, and a toadfish is a sort of fish, so given the setter’s legendary looseness (as evidenced in ‘Sussex coast’ to clue HOVE, ‘(RI)’ to clue PROVIDENCE, ‘a swallow, maybe’ for DIVER and of course ‘not a Peke, presumably’), I thought I was on fairly firm ground. Finally solving AVALON (doh!) put me right, and the almost-certainly-never-heard-of-but-fits-the-wordplay ASTOLAT was my LOI. (I think it may have been Ascolat in the version I read as a boy.)

    Thanks FT for the chance to encounter the Rev again.

  18. Just got round to this tonight. I wasn’t doing FT or Guardian crosswords on a daily basis when the Rev was compiling them, so I am not familiar with his style. I found this very difficult to get started, but eventually I got 17d and the obvious theme. Of the themesters, I’d never heard of Astolat, Bedivere, Modred, or Bors. Failed to parse PROVIDENCE (the RI bit) and just filled in UNDERDOG because it was all that would fit.

  19. I understand that Pekes were a favoured dog by Chinese royalty. So, if not a Peke, it may be an underdog. Just a thought.

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